Left side has a screen, right side doesn’t.

It was my birthday Thursday.  I did not spend it alone, I had a fill-in homemaker who was very nice and we had a lovely chat about our beautiful little town, and her son, and my illness (she asked), and it was fun.  The day before was the real celebration day.  My friend Tess brought me a two-serving cake from the grocers, as she does every year and we share it, some gorgeous yellow tulips

some styluses for my new Fire HD tablet, which I love, btw, and a card.  I had the knee doctor with x-rays since it’s been a year since surgery.  It is doing fab.  Great doctor.  Then we went to lunch at the Irish Pub up the street.  I had a six dollar Guinness draft which was soooo good.  Six dollars for a beer seems a bit steep, but I don’t buy beer out very often, so who knows.  Then we went to the ‘we sell everything cheap’ store where I found two yellow t-shirts in the right fabric.  It’s hard to find a t-shirt that is soft and nice, and these are.  5 dollars each, too.  Yay.  It was a really good day.  We always have fun and laugh a lot, Tess and I.  Her husband thinks we’re batty.  Maybe we are.

Last night she called me and I started scrolling through the Country Living page on the laptop, and we got hysterical laughing over some of the things on it.  Beautiful houses and grounds on there.  One advertised it had interior doors, which seriously cracked us up.  We imagined how to get from room to room with no doors.  Windows. Out one, in another, was our best guess.  ‘Dear, could you open the window for me?  I need to get to the kitchen to start dinner.’  Interior doors.  I think they mean actual doors, not doorways, but it was really funny at the time.  ‘Yes, we have interior doors’ is just hysterical.  Really.  LOL

Today I was tired and not as well as the past few days, but I cooked something, so that was a plus.  My cooking has changed drastically.  I made this cornbread thing.  I once would have measured everything out and done it right.  Today I used Jiffy cornbread mix, slugged in a bit of oil, the egg, and was meant to use an 8 oz can of crushed pineapple, some chopped ham, and a drained can of whole corn.  Only had creamed corn and was going to use it, but was concerned the batter wouldn’t fit into the pan which had to fit in the toaster oven since my stove oven is kaput.  So no corn, chopped up some leftover proscuitto I bought since I’d never had it and what a disappointment that was.  And the pineapple.  Drained it, the liquid was a bit more than required but dumped it in anyway, and started to scoop out something like less than half the pineapple, since it was a 20 ox can (they never have 8 oz cans anymore) and said to hell with it and dumped it all in.  Yes.  This is how I cook.  Just get it over with because if I have to stand here one more minute I am going to collapse from pain.  Turned out really good.  Not everything does.  Amazing how you can just kind of fudge things and still get something relatively edible, though.

So it was a pretty good birthday and couple of days surrounding it.  I am happy.  Oh, and my fill-in homemaker made my day.  I mentioned it, and my age, and she had thought I was around her age, which is in mid 50’s.  I turned 73 on Thursday.  Woo Hoo.  LOL

Got shut in the bedroom.  First time this has ever happened, but I think my homemaker left the door open while she was vacuuming, and Gertrude saw her chance and took  it.  Maye she’ll think twice next time.  Or not.  LOL Homemaker leaves at one.  I  just realized she was in there right before 9pm.  I kept hearing scratching, and put it down to several things over the past few hours, but I was about to answer an email when I heard it again.  Turned to see if she was scratching on the door to get into the bedroom, which she does a lot and I had checked several times already.  Suddenly it dawned on me.  She is IN the bedroom.  Poor baby.  I think she slept most of the afternoon, which she does a lot, and it’s only been the past few hours I’ve been hearing the noise.

After weeks and weeks of cold and gray and cold and windy and cold and rainy and cold, did I mention cold?, today it is 73 F (23 C, I think) and is going to be above 60 (16) all week.  With sunshine.  Actual sunny sunshine.  Wow.  I am impressed, Mother Nature.

I bought some just like these on Saturday.  It’s like sunshine in the house.  I put them where I can see them when I wake up.  Nice.

I am still struggling with pain and fatigue, although I think it’s leveling out a bit after three weeks on 8mg pred.  Of course, today I went down to 7.  I have to get off this.  I just have to suck it up and get through the really bad days without giving up.  I would have gone down to 7 1/2, but I just didn’t have it in me to cut all those teeny pills in half.  It’s bad enough trying to quarter Gertrude’s, cause they are really small and pretty much just crumble.

This is not my back. 🙂 I have the pain clinic on Wednesday.  More shots in the back.  I hope they help more this time, because I can barely stand.  I just read, and had forgotten, that shots in the back with meds from a compounding pharmacy here in Mass, killed or injured several people a few years ago.  The owner was just acquited of murder, but went to jail for a bunch of other charges.  So I am nervous now, but I think after this, they are probably pretty careful, she said optimistically.  I need to be able to stand and walk with less pain than I’m having, so I’m going.

Well, actually, just took a few minutes to google, and Mayo Clinic and WebMD seem to think they are not really a long-term solution, and there are some significant risks besides greedy pharmacy companies sending out meds with fungus in them.  Ewww.  So I asked my friend Tess what she thinks, because there’s nobody else to ask, and I always like to get a second opinion, because I have severe brain fog sometimes and just THINK I know what I’m doing.  🙂 Waiting to hear back from her.

It’s really disheartening to see how little integrity there is left in this country.  Everyone is out for as much as they can get, and to hell with the consequences, because there don’t really seem to be a lot of consequences.

But it’s finally spring and I am NOT going to dwell on the bad stuff.  The trees, what’s left of them, should be in bloom soon.  That’s always a happy thing.

I am off to make the shopping list, and prepare the return box for the Rubik’s cube I got instead of the desk vacuum I ordered.  Weird mistake to make.  The Rubik’s cube looks like a Rubik’s cube, and the vacuum looks like a mushroom.

Hmmmm.

I almost kept the cube, but I’d probably drive myself bats drying to solve it.  So no.  🙂

Woke up to this:

April is my birth month, and this has been a favorite song since I was very young. I think my grandmother must have taught me it. This is the only version I could find that sounded like I remember it. You can stop after 0.50 seconds.

I have been having a hard time adjusting to the lower dose of Prednisone.  Slept for three days last weekend, not straight through, but mostly.  Last night was awake most of the night due to those random pains that I haven’t had for some time.  I have been mostly non-functional.  Spoke to pharmacist about this, she suggested I get a second opinion on dealing with Prednisone, since my doctor and I cannot seem to understand one another.  Monday I go down to 7 mgs.  Let the fun begin.

So Spring is Sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the flowers is. 🙂 It’s April, my favorite month after October, because Autumn.  🙂